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In some cases, antiviral medicine may be prescribed to help stop the virus multiplying, and to reduce severity and duration.

Vaccine

Vaccines can prevent both chicken pox and shingles.

Chickenpox vaccine

Immunization with the varicella vaccine (chickenpox vaccine) is now recommended and routine in the U.S. It is a two-dose vaccine, given once between the age of 12 and 15 months and again between 4 and 6 years.

Shingles vaccine

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends the Zostavax vaccine for people aged 60 years and above. This age group has the highest risk of getting shingles and of experiencing a complication.

Since vaccination started in children, the number of shingles cases has dropped significantly.

Some people should not have the shingles vaccine, or they should discuss it first with their physician.

These include:

anyone who has ever had a severe allergic reaction to gelatin, the antibiotic neomycin, or any other component of shingles vaccine

anyone with a weakened immune system

women who are or might be pregnant

Causes

Varicella-zoster (shingles) virus belongs to a group of viruses called herpesviruses.

Shingles is caused by the same virus that is responsible for chickenpox. After recovering from chickenpox, the virus remains in the body. It lies dormant in the central nervous system (CNS).

The varicella-zoster virus belongs to a group of viruses called herpes viruses. This is why shingles is also known as herpes zoster.

All herpes viruses can hide in the nervous system, where they can remain almost indefinitely.

Under the right conditions, the herpes zoster virus can "reactivate," or wake up from hibernation, and travel down nerve fibers to cause a new active infection.

In most cases, it is not clear why the varicella-zoster virus begins multiplying to cause shingles.

One suggestion is that shingles occurs when something weakens the immune system, prompting the virus to reactivate.

medications, and especially immunosuppressive drugs, used by patients after an organ transplant

children who had chickenpox in infancy or whose mothers had chickenpox late in pregnancy

Prognosis

Shingles typically resolves within 2 to 4 weeks, and most young, healthy individuals make a full recovery.

Approximately 1-4 percent of people who develop shingles require hospitalization for complications, and 30 percent of those have impaired immune systems.

It is estimated that there are about 96 deaths per year directly related to the varicella-zoster virus. Most which occur in older adults and those who are immunocompromised.

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